Like UV rays and diesel exhaust fumes, working the graveyard shift will soon be listed as a “probable” cause of cancer.
It is a surprising step validating a concept once considered wacky. And it is based on research that finds higher rates of breast and prostate cancer among women and men whose work day starts after dark.
Next month, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the cancer arm of the World Health Organization, will add overnight shift work as a probable carcinogen. The American Cancer Society says it will likely follow. Up to now, the U.S. organization has considered the work-cancer link to be “uncertain, controversial or unproven.”
I’m just waiting for them to figure out that simply working will give you cancer so I can sue my employer for a hostile and unsafe work environment. Joe Jackson figured this out 25 years ago:
Everything
Everything gives you cancer
Everything
Everything gives you cancer
Theres no cure, theres no answer
Everything gives you cancer
Dont touch that dial
Dont try to smile
Just take this pill
Its in your file
Dont work hard
Dont play hard
Dont plan for the graveyard
Remember –
Dont work by night
Dont play by day
Youll feel all right
But you will pay
No caffeine
No protein
No booze or
Nicotine
Remember –
I think that’s what I am starting to conclude too.
As George Carlin put it in one of his famous “newscasts:”
“Today researchers have discovered that saliva causes stomach cancer, but only when swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time.”
Well, one longstanding set of night-shift workers have always worked under red light: the night watches on ships — reason being that red light doesn’t reduce your night vision, which is crucial to seeing other ships (and icebergs). Before electricity, of course, they simply worked in the dark.
It would seem to me that the cancer rate caused by working the night shift would be offset by the reduction in not having to worry about sunlight and other daytime carcinogens
“Das Leben ist lebensgefährlich” – Erich Kästner